Fail

Scarborough v. Krugman, The Aftermath

Between Krugman's own blog, video of the interview (a clip above), and Brett LoGiurato's writeup, seems like the economist didn't have the night he'd hoped. My favorite moment:

When Krugman asked, Scarborough said that he believes there should be investment in infrastructure and other government spending.

"That means spending more money right now," Krugman said. Scarborough said he'd be willing to provide up to $200 billion in infrastructure spending, something that seemed to surprise Krugman.

But Scarborough said that it was a "straw man's argument" to pretend that all Republicans want European-style austerity. He tried to make the point that he was not worried about short-term deficits, but rather long-term debt. He also said that reasonable — but certainly not all — Republicans like him want reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security for the long-term.

Krugman's own analysis (published before the video aired) tells the whole story:

Well, we’ll see how it comes out after editing, but I feel that I just had my Denver debate moment: I was tired, cranky, and unready for the blizzard of misleading factoids and diversionary stuff (In 1997 you said that the aging population was a big problem! When Social Security was founded life expectancy was only 62!) Oh, and I wasn’t prepared for Joe Scarborough’s slipperiness about what he actually advocates (he’s for more spending in the near term? Who knew?)

A useful reminder, I guess, not to take anything for granted. But I’d rather not learn my lessons with the camera rolling.